Chapter Eighteen

By the time we rejoined the group, they were looking for us. Because they had a plan that involved us. Yes, Torrent and me.

“There you are,” Odin said when we emerged from the stairwell. “What were you doing?”

“I needed to talk to Torrent.” I frowned as I looked around. “Why? What's happened?”

“We're hunting the beaver,” Hermes said.

My lips twitched.

“Oh, for fuck's sake!” Hermes huffed. “Enough with the beaver jokes.”

“I didn't make a joke.”

“You were thinking it.”

“Anyway,” Trevor drawled. “We're going to split up and visit the sites where there were beaver attacks. See if we can track the beaver god.”

I almost smacked myself on the forehead. “Of course.” I settled for rolling my eyes. “I've gotten used to not tracking the trickster. I forgot that we can still track other gods.”

“Will you be able to smell anything after a place has been drenched in water?” Angelia asked.

“Sure,” Trevor answered for us. “There are only a few ways to stop a tracker, especially a god tracker, and you'll forgive me if I don't share them.”

My smart man. I grinned at him. Then I said, “I call dibs on Torrent.”

“Yes, Minn Elska,” Trevor said indulgently. “We assumed you'd want to team up with him.”

“We'll split up our trackers, but if we find a trail that enters the Aether, we'll have to bring Torrent in,” Odin said.

“I can help,” Ty said. “And we can call in more Froekn.”

“We've got the Intare too,” I said.

“But Froekn are the best hunters,” Trevor said, then winked at me. “With exception to dragons.”

“All right, let's get to it,” Thor said. “Ty, call your people and then check in with Torrent to get a location. Torrent, we'll need you to have a list ready, starting with the most violent attacks.”

Torrent nodded.

“Vervain, you and Torrent take the first site on the list,” Thor went on. “Pick a couple of non-trackers to guard you.” He looked around. “Every team needs gods to guard their back. Do not go hunting alone. Understood?”

Everyone agreed.

“I'm not a tracker,” Modja said to Ty. “But I can watch your back.”

“There's no one I'd rather have at my back than you.” He kissed her cheek.

I hoped Ty's faith was warranted. He was a good guy, and I'd never seen him so smitten. To bring a girlfriend to one of our meetings without asking was completely unlike him. There could be only one explanation—Ty was in love .

But I had bigger things to worry about than my brother-in-law's love life. As I waited for Torrent to hand out assignments, I picked my crew. I chose Re and Odin. I knew Artemis would be joining us as well because she went where Torr went. So that gave us three guards.

Que teamed up with Viper and Pan; Trevor went with Thor and Morpheus; Kirill chose Teharon, Karni Mata, and Az; and the rest of the Squad would be teamed up with Froekn trackers. We decided to wait on the Intare. If they were needed, we could call them in later.

“Ready?” Torrent asked our team.

We went into the stairwell again, this time going downstairs and to the tracing wall. I know I said most gods have tracing chambers instead of walls, but there wasn't enough room for that. Not with all the over-day rooms for vampires down there. Space was money, so there was only a wall. Odin, Re, Artemis, and I held onto Torrent so he could direct our trace, and then he touched the wall.

It was still daytime wherever we had gone. So I was able to clearly see the concrete dam before us. It was a big one, with water pouring out of one side while a lake stretched to the other. Impressive. It was even kind of pretty, set at the base of some velvety mountains.

“Where are we?” Odin asked.

“Ice Harbor Dam in Washington,” Torrent said. “This was the site of the most violent attack. There were about forty people on duty at the time. The beavers broke down every barricade they erected and the workers had to flee.”

“What's the purpose of the dam?” I asked.

“Ah! Good question,” Torrent said. “I was doing some digging earlier, and I discovered that there are a lot of what people call deadbeat dams around here.”

“Deadbeat dams?”

“Yes. Dams that were created for frivolous purposes mostly. Like making a lake for a summer camp. And then the camp goes belly-up, but no one dismantles the dam. These useless dams can cause havoc on the wildlife in the area. Here, in the Pacific Northwest, they say the greatest threat dams pose is to the salmon. But that's only because people want salmon, so they notice when the fish are in danger. The threat is actually to the whole ecosystem. Dams can lead to toxic algae growth and—”

“Torrent,” I said gently. “We get it. Dams are bad.”

“Well, not all of them. But the useless ones that have been abandoned definitely are. And then there are dams like this one. On the surface, this dam appears to be beneficial to the area and the environment. It's a hydropower dam, so it's technically making clean energy.”

“Which is why Azrael wouldn't have destroyed it,” I said.

“Exactly. But here's the thing. This dam is part of a series of dams in the Columbia River Basin. The salmon runs have dwindled to nearly nothing because of them and the Native American tribes in the area have other options for clean energy. They don't want the dams. But the company that owns this place has been selling the extra energy made from the dams to California, so it's too profitable to shut down.”

“They can just transport energy?” I asked. “That's wild. I mean, yes, of course, electricity is transported all over the place. I know that. I just never thought that it would be sent across state lines. I assumed every state made their own power.”

“They do, but some states need more power than others—an issue that has gotten worse since Azrael's clean energy law. ”

“All right, so we know why the beaver god targeted this place,” Re said. “But that's not a revelation. We already concluded that he has his reasons.”

“Or she,” I said. “Let's not be sexist. The Beaver God could be a Beaver Goddess.”

“All the myths about beaver gods refer to them as male,” Torrent said. “I'm not saying they couldn't be a female, just that this is the reason I refer to him as a male.”

“Great. We've got his pronouns straight,” Artemis drawled. “I'm sure he'll appreciate that. Can we get to the tracking now?”

“Okay, okay.” I headed out across the dam, toward the center where a large structure rose from the wall. I assumed that was where the hydropower thingies were. And yes, that's their proper name.

Along the way, I shifted to my dragon senses, and the world brightened with streaks of color. That's where it got tricky. I didn't know the beaver god's scent. Normally, this would render tracking useless. But we knew he had beaver magic, whatever that was, and many beavers had been at the dam. If I could find a scent that held some beaver colors in it but wasn't a real beaver, I could assume it belonged to the god. Or goddess. I was still unconvinced of the beaver's masculinity. Maybe he was male but identified as female. You never know.

Back to the tracking. I immediately saw the beavers. They were all over the place, great globs of musky beaver scent permeating the concrete. It was strong stuff. No amount of rain could have diluted it. Only bleach would have done the trick, but no one had bleached the area. I didn't know if that was a good sign or not. The trickster knew about bleach and the damage it could do to a shapeshifter's nose. I knew he knew because he had used it to cover his tracks before, back when he left tracks. So, if it hadn't been used here, either the beaver god hadn't been there, he didn't know about bleach's power over shapeshifters, or the trickster wanted us to find the beaver god.

I quickly ruled out the first option.

“Holy cannoli,” I whispered. “I think I found him. And it's definitely a him.”

“Really?” Re asked. “That fast? Well, done, La-la.”

“Let's not pass out the trophies yet,” Odin said, tugging his leather jacket closed and scanning the area. “We still have to follow the trail.”

And that's what I did. I followed the trail right to where it vanished into the Aether. “He traced. He left here,” I said. “Torrent?”

“On it,” Torrent said and opened a vein of Internet.

Torr could create tubes of Internet Magic that could connect god territories to the Internet on Earth. To form those connections, he had to build the tubes in the Aether. So, if you could walk the Internet, as I could, you could use the tubes like tunnels to slowly traverse the Aether. Normally, that would be a bad idea. The Aether is full of all sorts of magical things, most of which shouldn't be looked at for long or even at all.

Every time someone passed through the Aether, the realm exacted a toll. A price. It took memories. Just little snippets of them. Then it used those bits to fuel itself. But like food in a stomach, those memories didn't get digested immediately. Snippets of god memories filled the Aether, floating about like scenes from a movie played on little screens. And that wasn't all. The Aether was where spells went to grow up. Magical intentions were sent into the Aether by witches, and those intentions grew and grew until they were big enough to manifest. So among the memories also flew symbols of spells .

If you stared too long at the Aether, it wouldn't stare back, but it would make you wish you hadn't looked in the first place.

All that being said, I was going into the Aether to stare at one thing and one thing only—the beaver god's trail. We could follow it to wherever he had gone. But due to the risk, we generally don't take people along for the ride. The Aether is not for sightseeing. So, it would only be Torrent and me going in. Once we tracked the beaver god out of the Aether, we could return for the others and direct their trace.

I took Torrent's hand and stepped into another reality. At least, that's what it felt like. Suddenly, I was in the Inter Realm. It looked just like the normal world except brighter. The glowing streams of information that crossed the landscape added to that. If I wanted to, I could grab one of those streams and let it carry me across the world. Or maybe three feet. It depended on where it was going. But I didn't have to do that with Torrent there. He formed a tunnel around us and pushed it into the Aether.

I directed Torrent, pointing after the scent trail. We crossed what felt like a mile of Aether before we came to the end of the trail.

“There,” I said. “That's where he traced out.”

Torrent took us to the spot and scowled at it. “He's got a ward up. Give me a second.”

This wasn't unusual. It would have been more noteworthy if the beaver god didn't have a ward guarding his territory. Gods generally don't like leaving the metaphysical door open. But Torrent's secret god magic was an ability to unmake magic. We tried to keep it a secret because if any gods outside of our circle found out about what he could do, they'd probably start hunting him. Magic like that—anti-magic, if you will—was deadly to gods. And most gods had difficulty killing another god. It was like a fail-safe clause for god magic. But Torrent, the unique god that he was, didn't have that problem.

At the moment, Torr was just using his Anti-Magic Magic to break a ward. I guess I shouldn't say “just.” Ward removal wasn't something gods could do either, and they wouldn't be pleased to know that there was a god who could bypass their magical security systems.

As he worked, I watched him. It was mainly to have something other than the Aether to focus on, but I also contemplated that magic of his. If he had it, couldn't it manifest in other gods? It would explain how the trickster got into all those god territories. There we were, baffled at something that should have been impossible, when we knew it was absolutely possible. Torrent was proof of that.

“There,” Torrent said as he waved a hand before him. “All good.”

He pushed the Inter Realm tunnel forward, taking us out of the Aether, and paused. In the Internet, we were invisible to everyone else. It presented us with the opportunity to look around the beaver god's territory before he knew we were there. Most gods could glamour themselves invisible, but that didn't mask their scent, and if another god really looked, they'd be able to notice a magical presence. Not so for us. The tube of Inter Realm hid us completely. There was always the chance that the beaver god had felt his ward collapse, but even then, he wouldn't be able to see us to launch an attack.

That is, if he'd been there.

We crossed a marshy land to reach a massive log cabin. It was cradled within lush mountains, and a lake reflected the sunshine off to one side. Despite the spongy ground, it was a cheerful place. Simple. Comfortable. A good refuge.

The door was at least fifteen feet high, but we didn't have to open it. In the Internet, we could walk through walls. Technically, we were in another realm, peeking at this one, not really pulling a Casper. We let ourselves into the beaver god's house and searched all the rooms. He wasn't there, but we did find one of those crazy villain walls with photographs and clippings. They still print newspapers? Evidently. Oh, wait. Those clippings were from the Hermes Herald.

“Get me closer to that wall of psychotic crafts, Torr,” I said.

“Yup.” He stepped over to the wall and the tunnel of Internet flowed into it.

I got up close and looked over the articles and photographs. The pictures were mainly of Azrael. It felt like confirmation of our theory. The articles were about him too, but there were also stories about the Wild Fey kids, me, and my family. In addition to that, the beaver had pinned notes to his log wall. Notes about Moonshine, the Golden Citadel, the Wild Fey kids, and our employees. He was very thorough.

“This guy has been studying us,” I said. “And Hermes has been unknowingly helping him.”

“And then the trickster took Hermes's caduceus,” Torr said. “Coincidence?”

“I don't think so.”

“Neither do I.”

“And I don't think he's done either. The beaver god, I mean,” I said. “All of this implies that he has more planned than busting up a few dams.”

“Maybe he's just a super fan.” Torrent smiled.

I snorted a laugh. “Please, never lose that optimism, Torr. It's soul-warming. And I need the reminder that not everyone who comes against us is evil.”

“You got it, V! ”

I looked around. “Okay, he's not here, but now we know where he lives. We can come back. Let's see if we can follow another of his trails and find out where he is.”

“All right.”

Torr and I headed back to the tracing chamber—a simple log structure, sort of a rustic gazebo. Since Torrent hadn't dropped the Internet tunnel, he took us smoothly into the Aether and then held us there a moment for me to get a good look around.

“That one seems freshest,” I said and pointed at a trail Torr couldn't see. “Go that way.”

We did another walk through the Aether, with Torrent molding his tunnel in whatever direction I indicated. And then we were out again. Back on Earth. At another dam. At first, it seemed peaceful, but that was only because the roar of the water drowned out the sounds of battle.

“Oh, fuck!” I screeched when I saw Azrael and Kirill. I jumped out of the Internet and ran for them.

Karni Mata and Teharon were there as well, but they weren't doing anything. Nothing more than gaping, that is. I mean, I get it. There was a giant beaver bashing into a huge concrete dam. It wasn't something you see every day. Also, the beaver was winning. But that wasn't what they were staring at. It was my husbands.

Kirill and Azrael held hands as they faced the enormous beaver. Kirill's eyes glowed blue, but Azrael didn't have any eyes. He was in his Death guise, stare lost to space. Literally. Within the eye sockets of Death's skull swam stars within a night sky. He wasn't a full skeleton. His flesh was still there, but his bones could be seen through it—a stark white that made his skin seem translucent. Acid tears dripped down Azrael's cheeks, but he wasn't upset. He was focused. Both of the death gods were .

I pulled up short, instinctively knowing that disturbing them was a bad idea.

“Vervain!” Teharon shouted and ran over to Torr and me with Karni hot on his heels.

“Get the others!” I said. “Torrent, take them. We need Odin. Now!”

The three of them vanished.

Then all I could do was stand there and witness the first battle-cast of my death gods. Except there were only two of them, and my star was telling me that was a problem. More than a problem. They needed the third god in their trinity to stabilize them.

Magic has been known to light the night or crackle over skin. God magic especially manifests in fascinating ways. But this was Death Magic. It didn't sparkle or crackle or anything pretty like that. It filled the air with heaviness. It seeped and crept. It dragged its icy fingers over the ground, leaving frost in its wake. Maybe that was Kirill's influence. I didn't know. Nor did I know what they were capable of. Or why they had bothered with the Death Magic. Azrael could have handled one giant beaver god by himself. No problem. So could Kirill, for that matter.

“Damn them,” I muttered. “They wanted to test the magic. This is not the fucking time!”

Death stretched toward the beaver, and it finally occurred to me that they were going to kill it. What the hell? Hadn't Az decided to be lenient with this god? Were they really going to kill him just because he was busting up a dam? I opened my mouth to call out, but quickly snapped it shut. If I distracted them, the magic could backlash and kill one of them instead. It wasn't a common occurrence, but it could happen, and I wasn't going to take that risk .

I felt awful about it and wracked my mind for a way to protect the beaver, but as the ice of Death crept closer, the giant beaver raised its head and roared. Water gushed up around it—a tidal wave that swept over the dam and slammed into my husbands with the force of a wrecking ball. I know the force it had because it hit me too.

I heard Odin shouting as I was washed away. Fear lanced through me. Yes, I was immortal, but I feared drowning. Long story. I nearly drowned in the ocean when I was a little girl and then, shortly after I regained my Fey essence, an angry Kelpie tried to drown me in a lake. No matter what they say, drowning is painful. Water filling your lungs is not fun. Okay, maybe it's not such a long story. Conclusion—I was terrified.

And then there were my husbands. I couldn't see them. I couldn't see anything beyond bubbles and froth. I could barely keep my head above water. The roaring wasn't from a giant beaver anymore but from the wave carrying me along. It joined with the thunder of the overflow from the dam when I got swept over the side. The fall was significant. Akin to falling off a skyscraper.

All right, maybe not that high, but it was at least a hundred feet. I was bashed about, abraded, and smacked by concrete before I slammed into the bottom of the river. The only plus was that most of the stones down there were smooth. But there was that whole not breathing thing. I kicked and floundered my way to the surface only to get yanked under again. I couldn't trace in that condition either. All I could do was hope that the wave took me to shore.

With the water pouring out of the dam, generating all that power that no one actually needed, it was a long time before the current gentled. It still didn't give me enough time to trace, nor could I focus enough to shift. But I started to move toward the shore. Unfortunately, the bank was lined with boulders.

I hit one. Hard. And that's all she wrote.